Highbridge's Walrow railway bridge re-opens to traffic

Published: June 13, 2008
Highbridge's Walrow railway bridge re-opens to traffic

This was the scene on Highbridge's Walrow railway bridge on Friday morning (June 13th) when it re-opened one day earlier than scheduled as work to strengthen it was finally completed.

Concrete bollards were removed from around the bridge and traffic freely passed over in both directions. It follows a long-running 18-month saga that saw the bridge completely closed in March 2007, then partially re-opened to light traffic last autumn after pressure on the County Council and Network Rail from traders and residents.

Network Rail spokeswoman Becky Warren told Burnham-On-Sea.com earlier this week that the strenghtening work - which started on March 15th - would finish this weekend. Businesses in Highbridge will breathe a big sigh of relief when the re-opening goes ahead, but residents living along the Walrow are unhappy that more restrictive vehicle weight limitations are not being introduced to prevent noisy heavy goods vehicles thundering by their homes, as we were first to report here.